MUMBAI: Second largest two-wheeler player Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) is looking to double the number of its Best Deal outlets to 200 by the end of 2018 as the company sees huge potential in this space.

The company, whose flagship scooter brand Activa last month became the largest selling two-wheeler in the country, opened the 100th Best Deal outlet here on Friday.

At present, the outlets, part of the regular Honda dealerships, are available in 70 cities across 19 states, Yadvinder Singh Guleria, Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing at HMSI said.

Best Deal is the first and the only organised retail set-up exclusively for certified Honda pre-owned two-wheelers. Though the company buys any brand of two-wheelers, it will resell only Honda brands. Non-Honda brands are sold to Shriram Automall and CredR, Guleria told .

When asked the volume through the Best Deals, he said over the past three years, they have acquired 45,000 new customers through these pre-owned Honda sales.

He further said that Honda gives six-month warranty and two free services to the models it sells through these outlets, apart from all other after-sales support.

On the direct benefit for the company, Guleria said apart from brand-building through customer retention and acquisition, incremental sales of spare parts lead to better commercial realisation.

On the rationale for entering the pre-owned business, he said "As a pioneer, Honda introduced the concept of certified pre-owned outlets under the Best Deal label, which allows us to create more touch-points of interacting with customers and also to tap into the huge potential that the pre-owned two-wheeler market offers."

"Our experience shows that the pre-owned industry is evolving very fast. The replacement cycle for two-wheelers has come down from seven-eight years to three to five years in the past decade alone," he added.

When asked about the potential for this business, Guleria said they see immense scope in the pre-owned two-wheeler retail and therefore decided to aggressively scale up the business.

He said Honda globally promotes pre-owned sales and that India is not the only or its first market. Through Best Deals, those who want to exchange their existing two-wheelers of any make for a brand new Honda model, or those customers who want to buy a refurbished and certified pre-owned Honda model.